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Understanding 9/11The Refutation of Machiavelli's Prince or, Anti-Machiavel
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From The Fortnightly Review vol. 115 pp. 117
It must not be supposed, however, that none of Machiavelli's critics have been students of his works, and one of the most celebrated of these was no less a personage than Frederick the Great of Prussia. The history of the Anti-Machiavel, which he wrote and Voltaire published, is a strange one, and it has been exhaustively told by Carlyle, who does not, however, show his usual acumen in dealing with the importance of Il Principe. “Perhaps mankind is getting weary of the question altogether," he writes; "Machiavelli himself one only reads now on compulsion—'What is the use of arguing with anybody who can believe in Machiavelli?' asks mankind, or might well ask, and except for editorial purposes eschews Anti-Machiavel, impatient to be rid of bane and antidote both. Truly this world has had a pother with this little Niccolò Machiavelli and his perverse little book. And as to the other question, was the Signor Niccolò serious in his perverse little book, or did ho only do it ironically, with a serious inverse purpose? We will leave that to be decided, any time convenient, by people who are much at leisure in the world."
It must not be supposed, however, that none of Machiavelli's critics have been students of his works, and one of the most celebrated of these was no less a personage than Frederick the Great of Prussia. The history of the Anti-Machiavel, which he wrote and Voltaire published, is a strange one, and it has been exhaustively told by Carlyle, who does not, however, show his usual acumen in dealing with the importance of Il Principe. “Perhaps mankind is getting weary of the question altogether," he writes; "Machiavelli himself one only reads now on compulsion—'What is the use of arguing with anybody who can believe in Machiavelli?' asks mankind, or might well ask, and except for editorial purposes eschews Anti-Machiavel, impatient to be rid of bane and antidote both. Truly this world has had a pother with this little Niccolò Machiavelli and his perverse little book. And as to the other question, was the Signor Niccolò serious in his perverse little book, or did ho only do it ironically, with a serious inverse purpose? We will leave that to be decided, any time convenient, by people who are much at leisure in the world."
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